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NDP moves away from socialist language to get ready for 2015 election

MONTREAL—Grassroots New Democrats, as part of ongoing efforts to modernize the party and convince Canadians they are ready to govern, voted overwhelmingly in favour of ditching language in their constitution that promoted socialist economic policies.

“We need to be talking to people outside this room,” Sandra Clifford, who rode the campaign bus during the 2011 federal election that brought unprecedented success to the late Jack Layton and his left-leaning party, told nearly 2,000 delegates gathered Sunday in Montreal for the last day of the NDP policy convention.

The constitution’s new preamble, which relegates the phrase “democratic socialism” to a paragraph about traditions and replaces references to social ownership and the rejection of profit-making to support for a rules-based economy, was adopted with 960 votes in favour and 188 votes against following a shorter than expected debate on the convention floor.

It was the second time that party brass had tried to change the language in the constitution, with the matter being referred to the federal executive to be retooled for another time so as to stem a divisive debate at the 2011 policy convention in Vancouver.

“Folks weren’t ready at the time,” NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen said Sunday.

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“Jack was always energetic about change. He lived in a world of change and believed in that politic. But for parties to change it can be difficult and it was done perhaps too quickly,” Cullen said.

There were a couple of impassioned speeches against the new preamble on the convention floor. Farshad Azadian, a young delegate from Toronto, argued the party would do better by moving to the left.

“We have to fight the corporate right-wing ideas of the Conservatives with the bold alternative to capitalism,” Azadian said to quite a few cheers.

Most delegates, however, ended up siding instead with former MP Bill Blaikie, who opposed the 2011 version of the updated preamble but helped draft the latest one. On Sunday, he tried to calm fears that the NDP was losing its heart.

“This doesn’t sound like a party that is in any danger of losing its identity,” Blaikie said.

“What this preamble does is maintain our uniqueness, retain the essentials and maintain the momentum so that one day we cannot just have a unique left-wing party in Canada, we can have a unique, left-wing Canada.”

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said he views changing the language in the preamble as part of ongoing efforts by the party to reach outside its traditional base to have a chance at defeating Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the 2015 election.

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The newly adopted preamble came as Justin Trudeau was poised to take over the helm of the federal Liberals. Mulcair and the NDP are clearly thinking the best way to counter any potential rise in fortunes for that party is to try to squeeze them out of the conversation.

“The only way to have change is to vote NDP,” Mulcair told reporters as the convention wrapped up.

He has rejected all suggestions of electoral co-operation with the Liberals, creating the impression that the NDP is counting on the Liberals to do even worse in 2015 under Trudeau than they did in 2011 under then leader Michael Ignatieff.

Asked whether he would be open to a coalition as a path to power, Mulcair pointed out it was the Liberals who said voters had a choice of “a blue door and a red door.”

“The answer from the Canadian public was don’t let the orange door hit you on the way out.”

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